Providing subscribers with reliable Wi-Fi coverage and capacity in a medium to large sized home, using a single Access Point (AP), can become challenging when the associated Wi-Fi users experience dead zones having little or no connectivity, such as at fringe areas in the home located at wireless signaling range limits of the AP and/or other areas receiving intermittent or insufficient wireless signals due to shielding, interferences or other influences. Operators are looking at multiple AP deployments in order to provide effective whole home coverage. In such scenarios, coordination between the APs in a home Extended Service Set (ESS) is required to effectively optimize many aspects of the network such optimal client association and radio resource optimization.
One contemplated solution to this problem includes deploying multiple APs at strategic positions throughout the home to coordinate their wireless service areas in a manner designed to provide wireless coverage sufficient to eliminate dead zones and/or to otherwise assure sufficient wireless service throughout the Wi-Fi network. The use of multiple APs within the home or other location can become problematic from at least a network optimization and performance standpoint due to an inability of the APs to coordinate client associations and radio resources, particularly when the wireless local area network (WLAN) is operated without assistance from or independently of a wireless local area network controller (WLC). One non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplates ameliorating the network optimization and performance concerns by enabling coordination between APs, including but not limited to addressing network optimization and performance concerns associated with sticky clients, AP overloading, radio frequency (RF) interference, excessive AP switching (“ping-ponging”), etc.
In order to properly take advantage of an environment having multiple APs, clients, stations (STAs) or other subscriber devices being used to access the Wi-Fi network in such an environment may be required to switch between the access points, such as when moving beyond a desired signaling range of a connected to one of the APs, i.e., switch to another AP prior to reaching the dead zone or other poor performance limitation of the connected to one of the APs.
Clients may switch from one AP to another AP in a roaming operation where a client disassociates from one AP and associates with another AP. The capabilities of clients to instigate roaming decisions may allow clients to make decisions locally based on information, measurements, metrics and other data as seen from the client perspective, e.g., clients can look at available APs and decide the one they believe will most likely service its needs in a desired manner. One problem with roaming operations being implemented according to such client-based or client-centric decisions is that clients lack an overall view of the Wi-Fi environment, particularly when multiple APs may be coordinating to facilitate coverage for a home or other entity. The inability of clients to see an entirety of the Wi-Fi environment, and/or to appreciate activities of multiple APs and the clients connected thereto, can result in lower overall performance of the Wi-Fi network, especially when the clients make decisions that are best for them as opposed to those that are best for overall performance of the Wi-Fi network.
One non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplates ameliorating the network degradations and inefficiencies associated with client-based or client-centric roaming decisions by supplanting or augmenting those decisions with a network-based or network-centric process for making decisions associated with clients switching from one AP to another.
In an enterprise environment the WLAN Controller (WLC) is an essential part of the network and manages the inter-AP communication and coordination in a vendor-proprietary manner. In a home network, however, where there is no WLC, there are also no standards or even defined best practices about how multiple APs in a home ESS should communicate with each other. Thus AP coordination suffers or is non-functional.
Existing coordination technologies could allow Wi-Fi APs in a home Extended Service Set (ESS) network to exchange information, ensuring clients are connected to the best AP for that client without adversely affecting other clients. While all vendors agree on the issues involved in AP Coordination, and some have implemented partial solutions, none have a complete solution. Standard 11v based client steering remains one of the main issues frustrating most vendors.
There is not a currently defined standard protocol that will solve the AP Coordination problem and there is value in defining a standard protocol or set of protocols that provide coordination of client associations and radio resources when multiple APs are deployed in a home.
Many Wi-Fi users' homes require more than one Wi-Fi AP for sufficient coverage. However, adding additional APs, which have been configured correctly and placed in an optimal location, can cause other wireless issues. For example, home ESS (Extended Service Set) networks can experience Wi-Fi client problems. One such client problem is a ‘sticky’ client or clients that do not roam optimally. Another client problem is where a client or clients unknowingly overload the serving AP even though there may be one or more underutilized APs in the vicinity. Due to the nature of Wi-Fi as a shared medium, these problems create a negative impact on the user experience of the other Wi-Fi clients on the network.
Home Wi-Fi users already expect to stream HD videos to multiple clients simultaneously from all areas of the house, and while moving around in the home, without interruptions. This has a high impact on the network in terms of the bandwidth consumed. Research also shows that Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) will be used extensively within the home networks due to the ubiquity and low cost of Wi-Fi. It is to be noted that, for optimal VoWi-Fi call quality, fast roaming, low latency and low jitter are important.
Conventional Wi-Fi solutions rely on the client to actively send periodic probe requests to nearby APs. This reliance on active participation from the client device(s) becomes problematic when the probe requests are sent infrequently and/or are sent on different channels.